Out of Aces (20 page)

Five hun
dred.

I slapped the computer closed and lay back on my bed, feeling worse than I had in a long time. Why did I even look at that website? I
told
Irina I didn’t want to know. I closed my eyes. Confirmation: you are st
upid.

I heard Irina’s voice, like she was answering me:
Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein.
She didn’t usually
lie.

I pictured green felt stretching in front of me, a trick I used to focus. This was no different than a poker game. The thought calmed me down. In poker, you start off with your five-card hand, but you don’t know what’s going down on the t
able.

My five cards were 100 percent on a dyslexia test; dropping out of high school; flunking the GED; getting sick every time I tried to read; and writing so badly that teachers thought I was screwing up on pur
pose.

How did you win with a hand like
that?

And what was the pot? I didn’t know. For me, right now, passing the GED would be enough. The rest of the pot
. . .

I opened my eyes. The rest of it, I already had. I was a good bartender. Hush had been great training. I was staying in Vegas, not slinking back to Washington. I had friends, real ones. Kosta, Berto, and April. They’d all cared enough to show up when I was in trouble, my own half-assed version of a family. I had a legit job, and I knew in my gut that if I ever got serious about opening a business, Father Giorgios would teach me what he knew. I wanted Irina, or a girl just like her, but I was okay with not having that now. I wasn’t ready to get married, anyway. But now I knew I was capable of not cheating. So maybe, if I wanted, I could get married someday and not completely fuck it
up.

And hell, I was alive. That was a pretty good
pot.

So really, the only thing left was the
GED.

What cards did I need? Double time and an audio version would be a pretty good s
tart.

It was Monday. Doctors’ offices would be open. I reached for my phone again. I’d gambled five bills plenty of times before. This was nothing but a different kind of
bet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S
tephanie Guerra is the author of the young-adult novels
Betting Blind
,
Out of Aces
, and
Torn
, and the middle-grade novel
Billy the Kid Is Not Crazy
. She is also coauthor of the forthcoming Zach and Lucy
series for early readers, written with Jennifer Bradbury. In 2014, Stephanie was awarded the Virginia Hamilton Essay Award for her writing on multicultural literary experiences for youth. She teaches children’s literature and writing at Seattle University. Stephanie serves as the Seattle host for the teen fiction blog
Readergirlz
. Her research focuses on literacy instruction for incarcerated and at-risk teens. The two novels in the Betting Blind series,
Betting Blind
and
Out of Aces
, were supported with grants from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Stephanie lives in Seattle with her husband and children. Learn more at
www.stephanieguerra
.com
.